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Since Jan. 2004, a Malay-Muslim-based insurgency has engulfed the three southernmost provinces in Thailand. The most lethal conflict in Southeast Asia, the insurgency has settled into a low-level stalemate. Violence is down significantly from its mid-2007 peak, but it has been steadily climbing since 2008. Most casualties are from drive-by shootings, but there are also about 12 improvised explosive device (IED) attacks a month. Insurgents continue to target security forces, government officials, and Muslim moderates who seek accommodation with the Thai state. Contents of this report: Introduction; Continued Violence: The New Normal; Explaining the Changing Levels of Violence; Thai Democrat Party Policy Initiatives; What Would Change the Equilibrium?; Impact of the July 2011 Elections in Thailand; Implications for U.S. Policy. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.
This volume of case studies examines the rise in violent extremism, terrorism and insurgency in South and South East Asia, and subsequent state responses. The South and South East of Asia has experienced various forms of extremism and violence for years, with a growing demand for academic or policy-relevant work that will enhance understanding of the reasons behind this. The violent challenges in this area have taken a variety of forms and are often exacerbated by lack of governance, tie-ins to existing regional criminal networks, colonial legacies and a presence of international terrorist movements. Written by experts with field experience, this volume analyzes the key element of successful response as the appropriate application of doctrine following nuanced assessment of threat. In practice, this often means counterinsurgency doctrine. The essays also analyze the need for irregular war practitioners to systematically examine the changing character of intrastate violent irregular challenges. The volume fills a gap in the understanding of patterns, drivers, organizations and ideologies of various insurgent and terrorist groups, and state responses. It also provides a set of recommendations for addressing the unfolding situation. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, Asian politics and security studies in general.
In Thailand’s Far South, Kee Howe Yong sheds light on the Malay Muslims in Thailand’s far south. The book focuses on the relationship between the construction of minorities – and thus majority – and issues of engaging with the difficulties of their realities: loss, violence, history, memory, livelihood, fear and paranoia, and political formations. The book explores the ways in which regimes of fear affect the way minorities relate to one another and to those in authority. It reveals how Muslim identities in southern Thailand are produced – under what constraints and structures, and by what technologies and force. Drawing on methodologies of narrative theory, performative aspects of language, and questions of history and memory, Yong demonstrates the ways the conflict was and is differently engaged by Malay Muslim interlocutors. The book addresses the generally ignored topic of the varied positions of the Malay Muslims at the borderland of Thailand’s far south and the implications of these positions in understanding the meaning of the current insurgency for the heterogeneous Malay Muslim population. In doing so, Thailand’s Far South provides an invaluable contribution to the southern Thai conflict, fieldwork in conflict zones, and the literature on violence, political science, history, security studies, and philosophies of violence.
Mobility as the driving force of armed conflict
Since January 2004, a Malay-Muslim-based insurgency has engulfed the three southernmost provinces in Thailand. More than 4,500 people have been killed and over 9,000 wounded, making it the most lethal conflict in Southeast Asia. Now in its 8th year, the insurgency has settled into a low-level stalemate. Violence is down significantly from its mid-2007 peak, but it has been steadily climbing since 2008. On average, 32 people are being killed and 58 wounded every month. Most casualties are from drive-by shootings, but there are also about 12 improvised explosive device (IED) attacks a month. The insurgency is now characterized by less indiscriminate violence and more retaliatory attacks. Insurgents continue to target security forces, government officials, and Muslim moderates who seek accommodation with the Thai state as part of efforts to make the region ungovernable by limiting provision of social services and driving Buddhists from the south. The overall level of violence may be influenced more by insurgent calculations about the optimum amount of violence needed to advance their political goals than by improved capabilities of the security forces. Despite better coordination, Thai counterinsurgency operations are still hampered by bureaucratic infighting and a lack of professionalism. Human rights abuses by security services with blanket immunity under the Emergency Decree continue to instill mistrust among the local population. Moreover, as long as violence is contained in the deep south, the insurgency will remain a low priority for the new Thai government, which is focused on national political disputes and is reluctant to take on the military by pursuing more conciliatory policies toward the south. Indeed, even under the 30-month tenure of the Democrat Party with an electoral base in the south, the insurgency was a very low priority and its few policy initiatives were insufficient to quell the violence. The new Pheu Thai government under Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the younger sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a September 2006 coup, will have its hands tied in the south. Its election victory and focus on national reconciliation have already engendered mistrust of the Thai military. The new government will be reluctant to criticize the military's handling of the insurgency, take on the culture of impunity, or push for any form of political autonomy. This will make any devolution of political authority unlikely, limiting chances for a negotiated solution. As a result, low level violence is likely to continue indefinitely. The most important immediate U.S. objective in Thailand is political stability at the national level and deepening bilateral economic ties. Absent a cohesive Thai government with the political will to overcome military resistance to policies that might address underlying causes of the insurgency, U.S. pressure to do more is likely to be ineffective or even counterproductive. Accordingly, the United States should maintain quiet diplomatic pressure on the government to broaden its counterinsurgency efforts and offer any requested intelligence and law enforcement assistance, while being cognizant of Thai sensitivity over its sovereignty.
Thailand’s Southern Border Provinces (SBPs) are comprised of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and four districts of Songkhla provinces. The region is home to Malay-speaking Muslims, with enclaves of Thai Buddhists and ethnic Chinese communities. It is also the site of a long-running Pattani independence movement that has been driven by armed insurgent forces, wracking the region in deadly violence that has killed over 7,000 civilians since 2004. At the heart of the conflict is a struggle for the right to self-determination for the Malay Muslim population, including the right to social and political participation, non-discrimination and the recognition of their identity, language and culture. Whilst Thailand has made improvements in promoting the rights of persons with disabilities in recent years, this group continues to face significant vulnerabilities and barriers to their full participation in society. The situation is especially acute for persons with disabilities in the SBPs, who continue to be neglected by policies that are meant to address their needs in the wider context of disability rights in Thailand while also being overlooked in efforts to reduce conflict and increase development in the region, deepening their marginalization from the wider society. This report aims to highlight the forms of discrimination faced by minorities with disabilities in the SBPs of Thailand. This report is written from the standpoint that intersectional discrimination on the grounds of disability and minority or other statuses cannot be separated, and therefore needs to be highlighted and addressed by relevant organizational bodies at the local, national and international levels. It is in this context that Minority Rights Group, in partnership with the Institute of Peace Studies, Prince of Songkhla University (IPS), the Center for Conflict and Cultural Diversity (CSCD) and the Southern Association of Disabilities collected data through a series of interviews and focus group discussions that took place in August and September 2020 and in July 2021 in Songkhla, Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala Provinces. This report contains an easy read summary.
The Global Nexus: Political Economies, Connectivity, and the Social Sciences is a provocative critique of the social sciences in the age of neoconservative and alt-right globalisation sweeping across modern democracies globally. The writer persuasively argues that the mainstream western social science modality of describing indigenous knowledge and sub-altern discourses as 'alternative knowledge' is due for serious review, for it describes, devalues, and renders it the same renegade status as the 'alternate realities' of the alt-right, neo-conservative agencies of Western and Asian governments. The abuse of indigenous knowledge by neoconservative governments to promote racism, ethno-centricities, and misogyny has also reduced vital sources of local knowledge to fodder, only salvaged by 'the good press' — specialists of the media in investigative journalism, communications, and literature, who propose that worldviews and ideas of the underclasses, including women, migrants, minorities, refugees, war prisoners, and refugees should be brought to the fore and 'mainstreamed' for the reader to understand that the stories they tell and their reasons why tell them, are closer to truth than fiction. These lost voices, often silenced, suppressed, and understated, generate new knowledge of the marginalised and disadvantaged sectors of modern society, reflecting the social realities of globalisation.Focusing on Southeast Asia with comparisons across nations in the Levant and the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, Wazir Jahan Karim vividly demonstrates how plural political economies have emerged and rendered flaws in the globalisation process. As powerful elites compete to accumulate and control wealth, power, and vital global resources, the growing phenomenon of global agencing, wealth- and poverty-generating institutions exist together in complex networks of hierarchical relationships, strategies, and alliances, with dire consequences for those on the receiving end of the global spectrum.
The making of modern Thailand is grounded in specific political institutions, Brahmanical tropes, and sacred Buddhist traditions stylized with Hindu rituals. Over and above these mysterious practices and ancient customs, modern Thailand is a product of the late Great Rama IX Bhumibol Adulyadej. Most Thai people have only known one King. Born in Europe and educated during World War II, Bhumibol was the son of a Harvard medical doctor who had a penchant for jazz music and fast cars. When he returned to Thailand in 1951 to assume his royal duties, he could hardly speak Thai but his French and German were remarkable. Bhumibol had inherited an impoverished country with nothing but a symbolic role as a figurehead monarch. He was surrounded by envious courtiers and royals from other families now sidelined by the rise of the Chakri. Scheming generals and authoritarian field marshals were emptying the Kingdom’s coffers. Using guile and wit, Bhumibol had turned the tide by 1973. He became the most powerful modern warlord in the history of the Kingdom. He survived attempted murder, crafty politicians, corrupt generals, sycophantic courtiers and impoverished masses. When he died on October 13 2016, Bhumibol was already the longest standing monarch in the world. King Bhumibol was deeply respected and well-liked by farang and locals alike. Despite his massive social and economic achievements many problems continue to plague the Kingdom. These are prostitution, human rights issues, pollution, corruption, cronyism in Chinese businesses, border conflicts with Cambodia, and the refugee problem. This book examines the role of Rama IX and the variegated set of problems that persist in life under the great white elephant and mango trees. Rappa draws from his primary research that includes interviews, surveys and first-hand observations of a remarkable kingdom and a uniquely remarkable king to reveal the internal security threats to democracy and civil society in the oldest Southeast Asian kingdom in late modernity.
The Armed Conflict Survey is the annual review of the political, military and humanitarian dimensions of all active conflicts from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. It offers in-depth analysis of the drivers, dynamics and outlook of 34 current armed conflicts along with detailed information on conflict parties and more than 60 full-colour maps and infographics. The Armed Conflict Survey is an essential resource for those involved in security, foreign and humanitarian policymaking, and an indispensable handbook for anyone conducting serious analysis of armed conflict. Key features · Essays on global trends in armed conflict, with a focus on the changing nature of third-party intervention, the long aftermath of armed conflicts, and economic migration and forced displacement in a COVID-19 world. · Overviews of key events and political and military developments from January 2020–February 2021 for each conflict. · Strategic analysis of national and regional drivers and conflict outlooks. · Regional analyses with unique insights into the geopolitical and geo-economic threads linking conflicts across regions and globally. · Expanded information on conflict parties. · The Armed Conflict Global Relevance Indicator (ACGRI), an IISS proprietary indicator that combines measures of incidence and human impact with geopolitical impact to assess the global salience of armed conflicts. · Analysis of the humanitarian, social and economic impact of conflicts. · Conflict-specific trends, strategic implications and prospects for peace. · More than 60 full-colour maps, tables and infographics highlighting key conflict developments and data. · Key statistics on violent events, fatalities, military power, geopolitical salience, refugees and internally displaced persons. · The 2021 Chart of Armed Conflict, presenting information on conflict start dates, typologies and relevant refugee flows, as well as providing a visual overview of each conflict’s geopolitical relevance, looking at 2020 UN Security Council resolutions, multilateral missions and the involvement of third-party countries.